This paper explores how seemingly complex servitized solutions can become tradable in a
customer–supplier relationship by objectification and abbreviation. The key argument is
that the complexity of product-service solutions can be reduced by abbreviation of the
reality in written form of contracts and agreements that allow for customization while
making the offer more comprehensible for customers and more manageable for suppliers.
Preliminary results from an exploratory case study are presented.

Purpose: We have examined which dimensions are used by the largest Danish manufacturing
companies to measure SCPM at operational, tactical and strategic level, how can these
dimensions be classified, and how do these empirical results have implications for practice
and selected SCPM-theories.
Design/methodology/approach: A deductive structure based on a theoretical framework was used to design an empirical
investigation of 54 Danish manufacturing companies, which all have revenue of more than
DKK 500 million. Furthermore, qualitative investigation was done by analyzing four casecompanies
in order to get a more in-depth picture of how SCPM is used in practice.
Findings: The four most used SCPM metrics have downstream focus. Companies that use SCPM
have a more deliberated split between metrics with focus on operational, tactical and
strategic level. While the quantitative data indicates that non-financial measurements are
most frequently used, the qualitative data implies that the companies use financial
measures as basis for performance measurement and that results from non-financial
measures have second priority.
Research limitations/implications (if applicable): The model is limited to large Danish industrial companies and we propose to widen the
model to upstream and downstream supply chain partners.
Practical implications (if applicable): The paper shows the most important and most frequently used supply chain relevant key
performance indicators as well as a process model of how to implement supply chain
performance measurement in a company.
Original/value: This paper closes the gap between theory and practice within the area of performance
measurement and management within the context of supply chain management. The
proposed SCPM model has been theoretically developed and empirically validated.

Purpose: This article provides a comprehensive review of the strategic management of transport and logistics services and to identify promising avenues for future research in the field.
Design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review is conducted based on articles published between 2011 and 2016 in international peer‐reviewed journals. 55 selected articles deal with strategic elements concerning hauliers, such as service offerings, costs and revenues.
Findings: Themes of hauliers’ strategizing that are discussed in the literature, namely carrier selection revisited, professionalism, innovation, horizontal collaboration, planned and emergent strategies, and value propositions.
Research limitations/implications: The research expands on the previous literature on logistics and transport and adds knowledge about hauliers as part of the transport and supply chain.
Social implications: In highly ranked transport journals, only two per cent of the published articles concern haulier strategizing, thus, knowledge development concerning the socio-economic and managerial problems of practitioners and policy makers is delimited.
Original/value: The study contributes to a strategic perspective by identifying transdisciplinary avenues of research that are likely to likely to encourage hauliers to be innovative.

Using a combined conceptual and single case-based research methodology, we explore
the process connecting a buyers attempt to transfer its sustainability requirements with
its suppliers’ willingness to participate. We conclude that buyer promoted sustainability
practices in the supply chain can be understood as multiple decision problems. The case
illustrate how accounting devices play major roles in resolving these decision problems,
and how decision criteria apparently unconnected to the sustainability issue affect the
outcome of the sustainability transferral process in the supply chain.

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The spatial scope of organisations has recently been reemphasised in the context of supply
chains and supply chain management. This scope is usually accompanied by uncertainty to
organisations, especially for the extended supply chain with geographically dispersed
operations and activities, thus posing environmental complexity in the form of risks and costs
that organisations need to contend with. The main purpose of this dissertation is to create a
deep understanding of this environmental complexity facing the extended supply chain, and
the main research objective is to develop a construct, consisting of factors and measures, that
can aid in describing its state in the context of logistics.
Overall, the dissertation assumes an international business (IB) standpoint in undertaking this
task whereby it is argued that countries and borders matter, and that differences between
country environments lead to environmental complexity in the geographically dispersed
supply chain. Country-oriented constraints may then exist at macro-economic level, or the
micro-/meso- e.g. firm, network and industry levels of the business environment. In this
dissertation, supply chain (logistics) environmental complexity is developed and
operationalised in terms of the range and heterogeneity of country-oriented macro- logistics
factors that need to be considered in extended, cross-border, or global supply chain (logistics)
operations. The remainder of this dissertation is thereafter dedicated to finding these factors,
and their respective information measures, by the application of a decision-making approach.
A decision factor is one that influences the decision on selection with regards to
environmental complexity, and an information measure is a unit of measurement that aids
decision-making by providing some information on the factor.
The findings of this dissertation are based upon multiple literature reviews, content analyses
and expert opinions, and suggest the importance of 17 such decision factors and 187 different
types of information measures, which describe the state of environmental complexity in
extended, cross-border, or global supply chain operations. The study is particularly relevant
from the perspective of strategy and design issues in global supply chain management,
international operations management and international business, and more specifically for
environmental scanning and decision-making applications such as site location and transport
mode selection. By applying the results of this dissertation decision-makers may, for
example, get a preliminary idea of the environmental complexity surrounding their extended
supply chains.

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Sustainability in business is clearly recognized as a very important topic which is intensively
discussed in theory and practice. (When it comes to the social and ecological aspects of
sustainability, the logistics and transportation industry is often considered one of the prime
suspects to be identified as a major polluter reluctant to implement changes and improvements.
A workshop was designed and organized in the fall of 2011 to start a discussion on the role that
the logistics service industry plays or should play in the sustainability business. The clear objective
was to work on the issue – not from the viewpoint of politics and society, not from the viewpoint
of industry and the retail sector, and not from that of academia ‐ but from the view of the logistics
service providers. In other words, the workshop was designed to help develop a clear statement of
the role of the logistics industry. A statement of the logistics industry’s role as the logistics industry
understands it.
This short paper recapitulates the red thread of the workshop discussions and ends with a
summary.
This summary is meant as a first draft of a manifest of the industry regarding their view towards
the topic of sustainability. It provides statements in response to four basic questions regarding
sustainability.
As this manifest is made by a focused, but in size and geography limited group, it is of course not
representative. Therefore we would like to encourage everyone from the industry in addition to
those from outside the industry to support us with comments. Tell us if and why you agree or not,
and how we could improve and augment the statements made.

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Within a dynamic and changing world business order, the management of tensions
and paradoxes affect the long term adaptability of the organization. The extant
literature recommends that, by adopting the paradoxical perspective through the
alternation of two opposing strategies for dealing with paradoxes – acceptance and
resolution - companies are more likely to achieve transformation and change. As
for lean sustainability, it is argued that the adoption of the paradoxical perspective
can facilitate the interactions between lean and the physical, social and
psychological structures of the company, which creates the necessary energy for
change within the social system that facilitates second order learning and the shift
in the mental models of the individuals involved in the lean initiative.
Through the identification of the paradoxes emerging during lean implementation
in three case companies and mapping the strategies used for dealing with these
paradoxes, this thesis contributes to lean sustainability - theory and practice - in
two ways. First, this study claims that, by adopting the paradoxical perspective,
companies are more likely to succeed in sustaining lean. The main argument is
that, in addition to the resolution of the paradoxes which is the main focus of the
rational approach, the paradoxical perspective takes into consideration the
acceptance of the paradoxical tensions which entails that paradox is also seen as
an opportunity for learning and for the generation of creative insights. Second, this
study concludes that the process of alternation between the acceptance and
resolution of lean paradoxes is more likely to be effective if it is intermediated by
the reframing of the link between the two opposing poles of the paradox. Thus,
reframing becomes an indicator for shifting between acceptance and resolution
strategies. It is implicit in this argument that if managers move from acceptance
strategy to a resolution strategy without achieving the reframing of the relation between the two opposing poles of the paradox, then attempts for sustaining lean
will be restricted.

What is the issue?
Innovation is an important key to success in today's competitive marketplace. Firms therefore have strived hard to innovate and stay ahead. However, they have to face the brutal fact that firms often fail to obtain the commercial success of innovation.
Why is it important?
With keen international competition and accelerating pace of technology change, the ability to introduce innovations into the market and capture the profits generated by an innovation is of strategic importance. It can put a firm at a competitive advantage and build a firm’s sustainable financial benefits.
What can be done?
The implementation of target costing will increase the odds of commercial success of an innovation. It aims at fulfilling the economic potential of an innovation by focusing on the market and customers during the design and price setting stages. This price will, on one hand, impose the cost-reduction target in the organization. On the other hand, it can be a driving force for improving the cost-effective design and internal operations.

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The Narrative Mediation Between Organizational and Individual Paradoxes

Majgaard, Klaus(Frederiksberg, 2015)

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[Færre oplysninger]

Resume:

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the conceptual understanding
of the mediatory relationship between paradoxes on an organizational
and an individual level. It presents a concept of agency that comprises
and mediates between a structural and individual pole. The constitution
of this agency is achieved through narrative activity that oscillates between the poles and transforms paradoxes through the configuration
of plots and metaphors. Empirical cases are introduced in order to illustrate the implications of this understanding.

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The academic literature suggests that firms cannot stay competitive if their business and IT departments
are not aligned. Several theories have provided insights into how to achieve alignment, yet most IT and
business departments still struggle to fulfill each other’s expectations, with dissatisfaction and low trust
as a result. Some scholars argue that alignment is about finding the right mechanical configuration for a
given organization. Others argue that alignment theory should move away from a focus on processes,
structures, and roles, instead looking at concepts such as communication, trust, and service quality. This
Ph.D. thesis features an analysis of the relationship between the IT department and the business
departments at the global brewery Carlsberg. The analysis is centered on how trust, transparency, and
service quality enter into this relationship, and how these interactions affect the level of alignment
between the company departments. Concurrent with the analysis and data collection, a framework was
developed based on qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data collected via interviews and
observations provided insights into the interactions between the concepts, whereas quantitative data
collected via survey instruments and experiments provided insights into the correlations between
concepts as well as their relational causality. The primary findings include the identification of causality
between certain dimensions of transparency, trust, and service quality, with expectation matching
playing a significant role in the relationship. The study also found that the relationship between
transparency and trust was mutually reinforced, and that factors such as organizational complexity,
organizational change, and lack of cross-domain engagement from the business employees had a
negative impact on alignment. The findings of the thesis have implications for theory as well as praxis. In
terms of theory, the findings provide a refinement of the normative claim that organizations should
merely establish communication mechanisms to improve alignment. While such mechanisms can be
useful, the roles of employee expectations, barriers, and the context of the organization must also be
considered in order to achieve greater success. In terms of practice, the implementation of a
transparency tool led to an increase of 16% in competence-based trust and an increase of 21% in the
assurance dimension of service quality. For organizations similar to Carlsberg, such a tool could be a
possible means to obtain similar results.

This study contributes to literature on value creation in buyer-supplier relationships as well as literature on IT service provision. It makes a first attempt at building a comprehensive model of the factors that enable and inhibit value creation within buyersupplier
relationships. A distinction is made between value drivers with a direct influence on value creation, operational- and strategic performance, and moderating contextual factors that may enable or inhibit value creation from taking place. Initial application of the model to an IT service provision context is provided. Further case based and survey based applications are needed to develop and validate the suggested model.

In this paper an analytic scope is elaborated in order to unpack the complexities of constitutive dynamics co-producing managerial subjects in discursive practices of public management work (my empirical field). Such framing is proposed in order to grasp the dynamic complexity of multi-modal, power-infused processes of subject formations, that is, the significant discursive practices through which different enacting forces constitute selves, actions, procedures and/or materials as managerial matters with specific normative effects. In this view managerial subjectivity becomes a question of analysing power-infused processes of active and passive performing subject formations that manage meanings of managerial matter, selves, affect conditions of actions and ways of organizing. Public management work is an interesting field to such; with the rapid changes seen in many OECD-countries, embedded managerial subjects and relating phenomena become in fluxes of binary tensions between shifting modernization discourses (e.g. in terms of ‘New Public Management’ or ‘New Public Governance’). With such the significance of formal managers are often stressed to changing ways of organizing (Bislev et al. 2002, Pedersen & Hartley 2008). But how do certain ‘selves’, ‘doings’, ‘things’ come to matter managerially in everyday management work, managing meanings and conditions of selves, others and actions? By analysing the socially embedded co-productions of managerial work, we can nuance research accounts on the performance of manageability in organizing processes. But grasping such complexity calls for discourse analytics sensitive to social-psychological aspects of constitutive dynamics, a need this paper contributes to.

The thesis sets out to study regulatory innovation inside government from the
perspective of user innovation and to do so in a way that is critically performative.
The empirical subject matter is ‘laboratories’ (Da. Styringslaboratorier): a form of
innovation process focused on developing ‘regulatory innovations’ (i.e.
administrative innovations used for purposes of regulating public sector
organizations) in collaboration between regulators and users. This particular form
of innovation process has been the subject of considerable debate in Denmark and
been suggested as a way forward in public sector modernization after New Public
Management. It is, however, also an underspecified phenomenon: while it is
attributed some potential, it is unclear what this potential is and what it is about
laboratories that make this potential plausible. We have only vague ideas about
what gets done when people do laboratories.

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It starts in a simple question and purpose of what is fair in the transport chain concept, and develops to an abductive reasoning based on critical business ethics research and polyphonic narratives for an understanding of the mess that involves people, ethics in supply chains, interest organizations and EU institutions. Analytical understanding arrives from the Spinozian ethical principles in societies, justice and mercy. Justice as a social pact in order to escape the natural injustice and inequality outside the social system. Mercy as recognizing individuals in collective co-existence. Fairness in fair transport is suggested to be of a dynamic nature and derived from knowledgeable reasoning and found in lived ethico-political relationships.

While managers in traditional management functions focus on developing strong expertise to
become “specialists” in their own discipline, supply chain managers are a different species: They
have to combine a cross-functional understanding of various business fields and multi-faceted
competencies to manage the manifold tasks they face on a daily basis. Unfortunately, as
globalization has simultaneously increased the complexity of supply chains and the demand for
highly qualified personnel, companies are facing a significant undersupply of talent (Cottrill,
2010). Moreover, organizations appear to lack understanding of supply chain personnel and how
to support their recruitment, succession planning, and training and development (John, 2015).
Surprisingly, at the same time, scientific research on that topic is relatively scarce. In response,
the overarching purpose of this paper-based dissertation is to address the research gap between
human resource management (HRM) and supply chain management (SCM).

Organizations are met with increasing demands for being in strategic control. According to conventional
managerial wisdom, clearly defined tasks, uniform processes, thorough documentation and strategic
oversight are all perceived as part and parcel of making large and unwieldy organizations manageable,
transparent and efficient (Johnson, Scholes, & Whittington, 2008; Kaplan & Norton, 2008). To live up to
these demands, numerous efforts have been undertaken, including the design and implementation of
management information systems. These systems, as epitomized in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
systems, seek to bring the organization under strategic control by creating a unified infrastructure for
collecting and analyzing data from virtually all fields of organizational operations to enable planning and
monitoring of activities (Kallinikos, 2006). Expectations of these systems at all levels of the organization are
high as they are expected to create organizational transparency and oversight for decision making
(Hanseth, Ciborra, & Braa, 2001). In this paper, we explore how ERP systems are used and impact local
practice in a specialized unit within The Danish Defense. Specifically, we ask what role SAP R/31 plays in
enabling and constraining everyday local practice and the handling of complexity and uncertainty at the
organizational front‐line. We draw on a case study conducted in a special operations force unit within the
Danish Defense, “The Frogman Corps”. The case illuminates the difficulties of using ERP systems for
management control in organizations experiencing complex operational conditions, including tension
between centralized control and uniformity on the one hand and unpredictability and need for decentralized
decision making on the other hand.